My family and I don’t tend to eat much chocolate for the simple reason that caffeine is so incredibly addictive and who needs more strain on already stressed out adrenals in this crazy day and age?
When we go out to a movie as a family, however, I usually make an exception and pick up a bit of quality chocolate for us to nibble and enjoy during the show.
Have any of you noticed that good quality chocolate is getting increasingly hard to find these days?
My husband and I first started to notice that American chocolate was going to the dogs about 20 years ago. Upscale American chocolates like Russell Stover, Godiva and others started to add artificial ingredients and cheapened the quality of the chocolate with milk powder, vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter and even artificial flavors!
To avoid these cheap imitation chocolates, we started to buy chocolate only at a small British shop where we could procure European chocolates like Cadbury’s (only made in the UK – the USA Cadbury’s was bad quality), Lindt and others.
Now it seems the European chocolates have followed suit and gone downhill in quality as well. At our recent family movie outing just last week, my husband could not find a single brand of European chocolate at our local Fresh Market that was free of additives, artificial flavors or rancid vegetable oils.
It seems our only choice for decent chocolate now is at the health food store. Organic brands have so far held the line on cheapening their product. Starbucks used to have quality chocolate as well but I haven’t checked the ingredients list there in a while as I don’t drink coffee and so don’t shop there very often if ever.
I’ve found that even if a brand is ok one day, it might not be the next so frequent checking and rechecking of ingredient labels is necessary to ensure that quality is still intact.
What chocolate brands are you using these days? If you have discovered a brand that is free of garbage ingredients and doesn’t include soya lecithin, please post about it in the comments section.
Since I only eat chocolate now and then, I insist that my chocolate experience be a quality one!
There is a Gourmet Chocolate shop where I live and I highly encourage you to check it out. I don’t think you will be disappointed. I generally try not to eat much sugar so these bars are a rare treat for me but they are so divine that one or 2 tiny squares satisfy my chocolate need for at least a couple hours 🙂
This is the Dark Chocolate Nibble Bar and it is my favorite but they have many others that are delicious! This one is a nice sharp dark chocolate with real coco bean nibs in it for a nice satisfying crunch, YUM!
http://www.askinosie.com/p-37-70-san-jose-del-tambo-nibble-bar.aspx
http://www.soyfreesales.com/index.html
This is a new company. I can’t find ingredients anywhere, but it looks like it could be promising. Just found a phone no# going to call. Watch the video.
Rapunzel.. they have it at Earthfare here in the south for about 4 bucks a bar.. Not that bad really.. As far as I can see it is decent with a pretty good flavor.. Organic, real sugar and no soy or corn syrup.. Also, anyone up for something new, look in to making your own at home.. We make chocolate syrup here and stir it in to whole raw milk and its just shy of a chocolate malt milkshake.. SO THICK AND CREAMY!! Either way, hope it helps.. Sorry for the lingo here but we never exact measure anything..
About a tbl. ish (Bright Earth Foods) organic raw cacao powder
Dash of (Singing Dog) organic vanilla extract
A Crack of (Himalayan) salt
A Gob of raw local honey; just enough to make everything mix (doesnt leave a honey flavor in the milk dont worry)
Ive learned the hard way here to mix together with a spoon in the bottom of a glass until everything mixes and forms a chocolate syrup..pour in about half a glass of raw milk and stir and mix and stir and mix (not quite as easy to mix in as store crap). When all is mixed well, add the rest of the milk.. We keep the spoon in so you can stir as you drink and sometimes put the finished product in the freezer for about ten minutes to get it good and cold.. Our milk here runs about 35%-40% fat so its like a milkshake.. A wonderful way to get a chocolate fix..Hope this helps!!
-jason and lisa-
I make my own chocolate. I combine 1 cup of coconut oil (melted) and a 1/2 cup of cocoa powder together. Then I pour it into a parchment paper lined baking dish and drizzle the top with honey. Chill, and break into small pieces. It’s delicious!
Boo-hoo, I googled Perugina dark chocolate ingredients and discovered that it, too, contains the evil soya lecithin among other things. Perhaps it’s because Perugina may be a subsidiary of Nestle now? 🙁 I will need to try all the other recommendations above. Glad I read through the responses. Here are the Perugina ingredients: sugar, chocolate liquor processed with alkali, cocoa butter, butterfat, soy lecithin, natural flavors.
Trader Joe’s or Godiva, although not ALL types…have to read the labels. We usually buy a small sleeve of tiny squares for our kids for special occasions and dole them out here and there as treats. They love it. Occasionally we even get away with giving them 100% cacao.
I know that I use to be able to find Rapunzel Organic Dark Chocolate:
Ingredients: Organic cocoa mass (100% crushed organic cocoa beans), organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic cocoa powder, organic vanilla. It’s getting harder to find but this chocolate is amazing and it has no form of soy in it or cheap fillers…most health food stores use to carry it. It’s a rarity now…but it can be found on-line. 🙂
Agave is a no-no.
These are the ingredients on my favorite variety, Costa Rican
Cocoa Mass*, Sugar, Cocoa Butter*, Vanilla (Nat. Flavor). Chocolate: Cocoa Solids Min. 71%. . *Rainforest Alliance Certified Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter.